![mason hamlin pump organ mason hamlin pump organ](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/40/81/fc/4081fcd77522bb3a09808dd271eb49da.jpg)
That's advertising (salesmanship in print). This raised an interesting question: How come really well-known composers (and those less well known for that matter) composed music for this brand but not others? Maybe there is actually some substance to the claims they made in their advertising literature anyone who makes anything will obviously say that it is the best, or the cheapest, or the softest or the most durable or less filling/tastes great. This reached a crescendo in 2003, when Michael Hendron and I teamed up (sort of) to present a program of music written especially for Mason & Hamlin organs, featuring works of Franz Liszt, Lefebure-Wely, Arthur Bird, and others using suitable instruments from my collection (the 33m Liszt, and the 431 Sankey) The concert took place at the first of the biennial Reed Organ Society gatherings which was held in Tuscumbia and Florence AL in March that year.
#MASON HAMLIN PUMP ORGAN MANUAL#
In 2001, I found a very rare style 86K made of mahogany in NY, and a style 33M one manual Liszt Organ in PA. That was an eye-opener! Then a few years later my first two manual and pedal organ, a style 41Q, an earlier one soon joined it, essentially the same, but with a different ID a style 800.
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In 1999, a pipe top style 523 Liszt Organ M&H joined the stable. In 1996 I bought another M&H, a Sankey model (style 431) from about 1895. I found there was an organized group, the Reed Organ Society, which I joined, and soon started writing articles for their publication. Knowing very little, but having good instincts from my Historic Preservation training (and my 7 years of music lessons which gave me a good ear) I was captivated by the mechanical genius behind that Hamlin organ, and once it was playable, I was completely in love with the refined, expressive sounds and its capacity to take me back to another time. It was the first "pump organ" that I really restored and tuned to my satisfaction (before that, I tinkered with a basket case that was too far gone to ever come to anything) That Boston-made instrument was quite different from the previous sad organ (C.J.Whitney, Detroit). I have been researching the M&H firm for almost 10 years, but first became a fan almost 30 years ago when I found my first (then very decrepit) Mason & Hamlin organ a style 406 from 1879.
#MASON HAMLIN PUMP ORGAN UPDATE#
Please scroll to the bottom for an important update to the M&H history.